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GRANT. 



DELIVERED 



REV. MILLER HAGEJVTAN. 



BEFORE THE 



(Brant Birtbba^ a^eociation 



NEW YORK. 




At The Annual Banquet, 
APRIL 27, i88g, 






Copyright 

BY 

Miller Hageman. 
All Rights Reserved 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE AUTHOR, 
267 Lewis Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y. 



DEDICATED 

TO 

General W. X. Sherman, 

IN BEHALF OP THE 

(5ran& Brmg of tbe IRcpublic. 



(Brant. 



In Life he conqtiered Rebellion. 
In Death he cemented. Rei^nion. 



GRANT. 

POH his couch at dead of night the 

dying conqueror lay, 
Through the still watches of his sleep 

breathing his life away : 
When from the shadows of the tomb 

with soft and stealthy tread, 
There came a silent sentinel and stood 

beside his bed. 



i- 



Poised in its bony hand there gleamed a 

keen, unerring dart, 
The sleepless glitter of whose steel fell 

pointed at his heart : 
The while as listening there he lay at 

midnight came a call, 
"Surrender!" and the only terms, are, 

" Unconditional." 
The stern old warrior started up from out 

his martial dream. 
As if beyond the picket-lines he saw the 

sword's fierce gleam ; 



" Halt ! Stand and give the countersign," 

he gasped with hollow breath, 
The while the skeleton between its teeth 

ground hoarsely—" Death." 
"Death?" cried the dauntless warrior 

with sudden burst of scorn, 
As though he reined his battle-horse 

and heard the bugle-horn : 
" Death ? What care I for Death, that at 

his call my soul should crouch ? 
IVe met him at the cannon's mouth, I'll 

meet him on this couch. 

9 



Ho, spectre ! drop that lifted hand and 

lay thy summons by, 
I fling defiance in thy face, Death, I 

will not die ! 
Give me that shaft of sleepless steel that 

round me once again, 
From it may flash in words of fire the 

battle of a pen." 
So spake the chief and from Death's 

clutch he plucked that pen of steel, 
And traced in trembling characters each 

thunder-bolted peaL 

10 



Till from each answering mountain and 
from each echoing nook, 

The valley of the shadow with the tread 
of armies shook. 

Mounting his steed at midnight as when 
'neath that dread sky, 

He rode down in the dark alone to con- 
quer or to die, 

He sat the pale white horse of death 
afront the serried line. 

He faced the leaden sleet that swept 

aslant the scarps of pine, 
11 



He saw his blades and banners flash far 

down the dark ravine, 
Till, plunged in smoke, he seems to fade 

in fancy on the scene. 
The ugly rents opened and closed about 

him, rank on rank. 
The bullet left its breath on him, the 

steed beneath him sank, 
The sharp command, the bristling charge, 

the fort, the sulphurous steeps. 
The fiery trails, the knee-deep field, the 

trenches' gory heaps : 

12 



All, all once more before him passed as 

on his dimming eye, 
The midnight sun of memory shone o'er 

him from on high. 
He felt the shadows round him fold their 

chilly winding-sheet, 
He felt the heart's soft drum-taps for 

the final roll-call beat. 
He heard the night-watch on the wall 

ticking its low tattoo, 
So soon to hear the reveille sounding the 

Grand Eeview. 



13 



He saw the shadow of his hand as with 

prophetic track 
It fell across the disk of time and set the 

dial back ; 
Signing his death-warrant, the while with 

life he still must strive, 
For that hand had crossed the dead-line 

while yet he was alive. 
Cold as a dead king's coronet gleams out 

all grandly now, 
Set with the jewels of his crown those 

beads upon his brow ; 

14 



Cold as a figure carved in stone atlirong- 

the marts of men, 
Propped up by that wliite pillow, that 

hero of the pen. 
He wrote, but not as poets in the tropics 

of their youth, 
For there was only time enough for him 

to tell the truth : 
He told the story simply for future years 

to scan, 
Too near the judgment of his God to care 

for that of man. 

15 



What though each stroke of that sharp 

pen was but a flash of pain ? 
What though each thought a bolt that 

struck a sphnter from his brain ? 
What though the weary watcher slept ? 

While Death bent sleepless by, 
Where honor on misfortune called 'twere 

cowardice to die. 
Ah ! 'twas not of himself he thought as 

memory came and went, 
For one there was who sleeplessly as death 

beside him bent ; 

16 



And when at length his task was wrought 

as love\s last glance he took, 
Her image on his lifeless eye still kept 

its living look. 
Heroic man of iron mould, this modest 

hero dies, 
With only silence on those lips, that 

rarest of replies ; 
Too near our eyes to see as yet what 

time shall show at last, 
His faults were but the shadows that his 

solid virtues cast. 

17 



Ignored, rebuked, maligned, displaced, 
through all that could oppose, 

Up from the bottom to the top that great 
subaltern rose. 

Till, with three armies in his grasp, he 
stood at last alone, 

The monarch of the mightiest force that 
earth hath ever known. 

Himself his own prime-counsellor, with- 
out one petty whim. 

He knew how to use rules without letting 
those rules use him • 

18 



With but one bright ambition that fired 

his eager ken, 
Where tyros of the topic art took places, 

— he took men. 
True to himseh', true to his friends, and 

to his country true, 
He struck to save that country, and 

where he struck, he slew. 
In war as terrible as blood, yet tender as 

the child 
On whom amid the battle-shock so 

lovingly he smiled ; 

19 



For though he seemed with visage stern 

to pity grown apart, 
Benea,th that iron armor beat a soft 

and gentle heart. 
And when the war was over and treason 

knew its fall, 
He entered not in triumph the conquered 

capital, 
But with a magnanimity that history 

shall record, 
Victor, he took the vanquished hand, but 

scorned to take the sword. 

20 



A grand chivalric conqueror, he never 

could forget, 
Where brothers fought as bitter foes 

they fell as brothers yet ; 
And when as comrades hand to hand 

they bore him on his bier. 
The blue and gray lost color in the 

crystal of a tear. 
Fair garden of the grounded arms, 

through thy lute-fingered leaves 
The northern and the southern wind 

shall meet, as summer weaves 

21 



From many a willow's muffled harp a 

chaplet wet with dew, 
While heaven shall give its rosemary to 

whom earth gave its rue. 
Cut off in that far country to which his 

soul hath passed, 
Where the dead get no despatches and 

the wires are down at last ; 
No courier can call him back, no orders 

reach him now, 
No martinet can pluck the stars that 

blossom on that brow. 

23 



Dead Immortal ! take thy crown ; thy 

martial dream is done, 
Thine was the greatest battle that was 

ever waged or won : 
Wrought by indomitable will in lines of 

adamant, 
Still there, as if defying death, shall stand 

the name of — Grant. 




23 






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